The People’s Progres-sive Party (PPP) is awaiting a report to the nation by President David Granger before commenting on the outcome of his meeting with Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro on Sunday in New York.
“I am not prepared to go according to newspaper reports [on] what the president said or what the president did not say. I would prefer the president, on his return to Guyana, to report to the nation with the Foreign Minister at his side and to tell us exactly what took place,” PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee told the party’s weekly press briefing at Freedom House yesterday.
Rohee was asked the party’s position on the outcome of the meeting between the two leaders, which was convened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the fringes of the UN General Assembly.
“I wouldn’t want to comment on anything that took place in New York at the UN…let us wait until the President returns,” Rohee said.
Following the meeting, a statement from the UN Secretary-General’s office stated that the two presidents expressed willingness to continue to engage in dialogue, and announced during the meeting that they would receive their respective ambassadors in order to ensure a return to fully fledged diplomatic representation in both capitals in the nearest future.
Speaking with reporters afterward, Granger said both sides explained their positions.
“The Venezuelan position is based on the Geneva Agreement. They felt that they were seeking some resolution to the Geneva Agreement but they avoided the fact that the matter was resolved, that it was settled finally in 1899. The Venezuelans were unable to provide any evidence that the 1899 award was void, that it was null. On the Guyana side, we felt that the controversy was essentially a legal one and we asked for a legal solution, so the Venezuelans really had no case,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rohee also criticised the president for failing to hold a press conference since his election in May. “You know, we have been pressing for the President whenever he goes out on these international forays that he should come back and report to the nation… so that you journalist[s] could be present at that meeting and ask him any question for clarification,” he said.
“The president has not held a press conference with journalists. What he has sought to do is invite, in rotation, in a rotational format, two journalists or three journalists at a time to speak to them about issues that he has an interest in; that is another format that could be done,” he added.
At the start of the month, the Government Information Agency (GINA) had reported that the president would host a press conference “soon.”
